


Falling Into You

by thehorrorinsymmetry



Series: oh nuts [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Professors, Anaphylaxis, First Kiss, M/M, and shit hits the fan, it's the department's annual christmas dinner, this is a lot more dramatic than my usual stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 10:17:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12839082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehorrorinsymmetry/pseuds/thehorrorinsymmetry
Summary: Finn's pretty sure that his first faculty dinner at this university is going to be more exciting than these sorts of events usually are. He's right, but for absolutely the wrong reasons.





	Falling Into You

**Author's Note:**

> more specific cw if you want to know: poe experience pretty serious anaphylaxis (but he's okay in the end)

Finn has never been this excited to go to a faculty event.

There’s not really anything that makes this department’s Christmas dinner inherently different from the ones he’s attended in the past - he’s sure it’ll have the usual less than stellar food, still be attended by grumpy professors complaining about their research and the latest student to get on their nerves. Ostensibly it should be the same carbon copy as every other one has been, the only differences found in small details no one will remember anyway.

Except he knows that’s not going to be the case thanks to one small, very significant detail.

Poe Dameron is going to be there.

Not only is Poe going to be there, they’re going to it  _ together _ .

It’s not a date.

They’re going to it as friends - really just two people carpooling to an event together. Still, he’s happy to know he’ll be with someone he enjoys talking to.

It has nothing to do with the fact that he’s had a crush on the ridiculous, utterly wonderful man that is Dr. Poe Dameron since he began working at this school all of three months ago.

He’s just happy to be going with a friend. He’d probably have the same rush of excitement in his chest if it had been Rose to ask if he wanted to go together.

Besides, he’s really enjoyed working at this school so far. The department is a bit more - energetic - than at his last job, but there’s a lot of good people here.

He’s made his mom’s butter pecan cookies for tonight. It’s his one of his favourite recipes - particularly in the winter, the perfect food to have with a mug of hot chocolate when you want to warm up after being out in the snow. They remind him of his childhood, of his moms smiling and laughing together, so playful as the three of them would bake cookies together. He and his ma would try to sneak pieces cookie dough when his mom wasn’t looking with a wickedly low success rate.

Even now, after so many years, they remind him of home. He’s always wanted to make them for someone he loves.

This isn’t that - it absolutely is not that - but it’s close. It’s the closest he can get at the moment which is fine because he loves baking for his friends. It’ll be nice to have someone to bake  _ with _ , though.

There’s a knock at his door just as he’s filling a couple sandwich bags for Poe and Rose to take home. His heart jumps in his chest - it was a surprise, that’s all - and he seals the container up, jogging to the door. He pauses for a moment, smooths his hands down his shirt and takes a deep breath as he opens the door.

“Merry Christmas!” Poe is smiling wide, his curls artfully styled on his head, his bright orange scarf wrapped around his neck and doing absolutely nothing to make him less attractive.

He raises an eyebrow and pulls his jacket on. “It’s December second.”

“Yeah,” Poe nods like that is somehow strengthening his argument. “It’s the second day of Christmas.”

He breathes a laugh and fights the urge to lean against the doorframe. “Merry Christmas, Poe.”

The crow's feet at the corners of Poe’s eyes deepen with his smile, his cheeks flushed from the cold air. 

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

“Are you ready to go?”

Finn blinks. “Uh, yeah, just one sec.”

He grabs the container and shuts the door, very aware of how Poe hasn’t moved, how if he just leaned back a bit he’d be against Poe’s chest. 

Poe’s looking at the container when he turns around, his eyebrows raised. “What’s that?”

“A surprise.” He nudges Poe’s shoulder. “C’mon,”

“You know seven is pretty flexible, right? They never really start these things on time.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Poe leads him to the passenger side of his truck and leans against the door. “So if you wanted to take a minute and show me what’s in there, maybe even let me try one, you don’t need to worry about having to rush.”

He laughs. “I’m okay, thank you.”

Poe’s bottom lip sticks out in a frown. “Will I get one later?”

“We’ll see,” He tilts his head with a small smile. “I haven’t decided if you’re on the nice or naughty list yet.”

Poe hums. “Anything I can do to persuade you?”

He ignores his suddenly dry throat. “You could drive us to the dinner.”

Poe sighs and peels himself away from the truck. He opens the door, holding it as Finn gets in and shutting it once he’s made sure Finn’s feet aren’t hanging out.

He watches Poe walk around the truck and tries to calm his racing heart.  
  
  


—

 

It’s a short drive, much to Finn’s relief. 

Poe’s singing along to the radio under his breath, fingertips tapping on the steering wheel and his head bobbing to the beat as they pull into a parking spot. 

He shuts the engine off and grins at Finn. “Ready to party hard?”

He pretends to think it over as he pulls his seatbelt off and opens the container in his lap. “We could pregame it, if you want.”

Poe stares at the cookies. “Uh, what kind is that?”

“Butter pecan,” he holds the container up towards Poe. “It’s my mom’s recipe.”

“Oh, is it?” Poe glances between him and the cookies. He takes one, holding it between his thumb and forefinger and staring at it like it’s something he’s working on in the lab.

Huh.

Does Poe not like them?

Poe pops the entire cookie into his mouth. “Oh, that’s so good.”

“Do you want one more?”

“Uh,” Poe licks a crumb off his lip. “Maybe I’ll hold off? I don’t want to eat them all before anyone else has a chance to taste them.”

Before he has a chance to react Poe glances at his watch and hops out of the truck. He grabs one of the sandwich bags from the container and leaves it on the dashboard for Poe to find later.

Poe opens his door with a soft grin. “C’mon, you haven’t partied until you’ve seen Statura party.”

“Poe you know what happens when matter and antimatter meet, right?” He pulls himself out of the truck and for a moment thinks about stepping into Poe’s space, about kissing the smile off Poe’s face.

The thought only seems to ring louder in his mind when he steps away.

“Do you think -“ He turns around and -

Poe’s face down on the ground.

He’s not moving.

“Poe?”

The silence is deafening.

He runs to where Poe is lying and drops onto his knees, the icy pavement hitting hard. His mind races, flashes of worst case scenarios tearing through his thoughts as he rolls Poe onto his back and pulls at Poe’s scarf, searches for a pulse.

There.

It’s weak, a breakneck thrum against his fingertips, but it’s there.

His fingers are clumsy as he pulls out his phone, numb in the cold air, threatening to drop the phone as he dials 911. “Come on, come on,”

He murmurs Poe’s name under his breath, a quiet, desperate plea, until there’s finally a voice on the other end of the line.

It all moves really fast after that.

The operator stays on the line until the ambulance arrives and the next thing Finn knows he’s being questioned while Poe’s strapped into a stretcher and loaded into the ambulance.

He looks so red.

They work on him on the way to the hospital, putting an iv in his arm and oxygen mask on his mouth that covers most of his face. They cut his shirt open and don’t blink when they find the redness covers his chest too.

He’s still unconscious when they get to the hospital.

They don’t tell Finn anything.

Poe’s rushed off somewhere, his stretcher disappearing into a long hallway. Finn’s left alone in the waiting room after a nurse takes his name with nothing to do but wait until someone can tell him what the fuck is happening.

He calls Karé to let her they aren’t going to make it to the dinner, that yes Poe’s truck is in the parking lot but something came up, that he’ll tell her more as soon as he can.

Then he waits.

And waits.

And waits.

Nearly an hour passes with nothing. No updates, no Poe, not so much as a glance his way from anyone that comes through the big doors that lead to wherever Poe is.

People come and go, exhaustion and stress written on their features, heavy in their steps. A little girl waves at him from her mother’s lap, couples and families hunched together, a few people trying to sleep.

Finn is not a fan of being in hospitals.

He runs through the possibilities, wishing a few times that he knew more about medicine.

It’s most likely an allergic reaction. Anaphylactic shock. The handful of websites he checks agree with him, that it’s that or asthma.

He has no idea if Poe has either.

That’s a good thing, though. Right? Those are both well known, treatable conditions.

If it is one of those.

He tells himself that it doesn’t have to be a bad sign that he hasn’t heard anything yet. Poe was breathing, he had a pulse, that’s huge. People bounce back all the time. 

The ambulance got there fast and the paramedics seemed so calm, like the situation was under control. Poe’s going to be okay.

He has to be.

Eventually, finally, someone walks through the big doors and when she looks around the room, her gaze lands on him. She walks towards him with a heaviness in her expression that is completely at odds with the little reindeer on her scrub top, that makes his blood pressure jump. “Are you Poe Dameron’s partner?”

“Yes.” The word bypasses his brain entirely, already out by the time he recognizes its shape on his tongue. “Yes, that’s me. Is he okay? Is he awake? Do you know what it was? Does he -”

The woman smiles patiently. “You can come with me.”

She leads him through the big doors, past a number of rooms filled with strangers, past nurses and doctors standing at counters with endless charts. She leads him all the way to the end of the hallway, finally turning into the last room.

It’s divided in half by a thin curtain, a half-baked attempt at giving the two occupants some shred of privacy. Poe -

He looks so small.

He still has the iv and oxygen mask, but now there’s a pulse oximeter on his finger, wires that disappear under the collar of his hospital gown attached to a machine that beeps at a steady rate.

He takes a deep breath.

“He had an allergic reaction.” The woman speaks softly, like she knows he forgot that she was there. “A bad one, he’ll need to stay under observation for a little while, but we’re expecting a full recovery.”

Her words sink in, tight in his chest as he tries to process the sight in front of him. “Has he woken up yet?”

“Shortly after he arrived here, yes. He asked about you, he’ll be glad to see you.” The woman puts her hand on his shoulder with a small smile. “Anaphylaxis and the medication we’ve given him takes a lot out of someone so this is completely normal.”

He nods.

“If you have any questions the nurses station is just out in the hall, okay?”

“Thank you.”

The woman leaves, her quiet footsteps disappearing completely after a moment.

He moves the chair from the wall, scooting it beside the bed, sitting at Poe’s side.

An allergic reaction.

His cookies - it had to be his cookies. Poe’s allergic to something in his cookies. He rubs his hands over his face and takes a deep breath, pressing against his hands until he begins to see spots. Poe’s okay. He’s okay.

He’s okay.

He sends a text to let Karé know that Poe had an allergic reaction to something but will be okay, his thoughts running wild as soon as his phone’s back in his pocket.

He just wants to see Poe’s eyes open.

He puts his hand on Poe’s arm to feel the warmth of his skin, sliding just far enough to press his fingertips into the underside of Poe’s wrist. Poe’s pulse thrums against his fingers in time with the machine, warm, alive.

He moves down farther and takes Poe’s hand in his. 

Poe’s fingers curl around his.

He looks up.

Poe’s eyes are open. Just barely, only a sliver of those warm brown eyes visible, but - he’s awake.

“Poe,”

Poe groans, rolling onto his side.

“Hey, easy,” He puts his free hand on Poe’s arm and leans into him to slow him down. “You need to rest.”

Poe blinks, pulling the mask down around his neck. He tightens his grip on Finn’s hand. “Hi,”

“Hey,” He resists the urge to brush Poe’s hair off his face. “How are you feeling?”

“Bad,” Poe smiles weakly. “What time’s it?”

“About nine. You were out for a while.”

Poe nods, his eyes falling shut. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Made you worry,” Poe frowns. “You missed the dinner.”

“I don’t care about the dinner, Poe.” He turns Poe’s hand in his, rubs his thumb over Poe’s knuckles. “You don’t need to apologize, just take it easy, yeah?”

“Pecans.”

He blinks. “What?”

“Pecans.” Poe mumbles, his gaze dropping to somewhere near his shoulder. “I’m allergic to pecans.”

Oh. “The doctors told you that?”

Poe shakes his head.

Wait, what?

“What?”

Poe opens his mouth to reply but begins to wheeze. He tries to take a deep breath, only succeeding at making an absolutely horrible sound, his eyebrows knitting together.

He lets go of Poe’s hand and grabs the oxygen mask, pushing it back onto Poe’s face. Sitting back, he replays what Poe had just told him in his head. “You already knew you were allergic to pecans?”

Poe nods.

“You did see the whole pecan on top of the cookie, right? You heard me say the words ‘butter pecan’ when you asked what kind it was? Why would you eat it?”

Poe mumbles something under the mask.

He doesn’t bother to try to understand it.

“Stop talking, Poe. You need to rest. Because you’re recovering from anaphylactic shock. Because you ate something you  _ knew _ you were allergic to.” He stops himself and looks down at the floor, folding his arms tight over his chest. That curtain really is so thin. He takes a deep breath and reminds himself to speak quietly. “Seriously, what the fuck?”

Poe pulls the mask off. “I didn’t know.”

“You  _ just  _ told me -”

“I didn’t know it would be that bad.” Poe murmurs, pausing to take a breath. “The last time I had pecans I just had an upset stomach for a while.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have understood if you said ‘Finn, I can’t eat this because I’m allergic and if I do I’ll get sick and possibly even die’. I would have understood if you just told me you didn’t like pecans.”

Poe stares into space for a moment, the oxygen mask folding nearly in half in his hand. “You looked so excited, and - and I wanted to. They looked good - they  _ were _ good, and it was your mom’s recipe, and you made them.”

He stares at Poe. Something new in his chest grows tight against his ribs. “That’s stupid.”

“I’m sorry,” Poe reaches out, the iv in his arm coming perilously close to taut. He raises his hand to meet Poe’s and rests his elbow on the bed, close to Poe’s body. “I’m so sorry that I scared you, Finn.”

He stares at their hands, watches the way Poe’s thumb moves over the back of his hand. “When I saw you on the ground, I - I didn’t - you were face down on the pavement, Poe. You had been talking to me like thirty seconds earlier and then you were just on the ground."

Poe stays quiet, his thumb moving in slow circles on Finn’s hand.

“You were barely breathing and your pulse was weak and -” He swallows, his throat aching around a growing lump. “There was nothing I could do.”

Poe looks at him for a moment. He shuffles back on the bed and pats the space in front of him. “C’mere.”

“Poe -”

“C’mon.” Poe holds his gaze, tugging weakly at his arm.

Even sick he’s still the most stubborn man alive.

Finn pulls himself out of the chair and sits on the edge of the hospital bed, the metal frame shifting under the additional weight. Their sides are plastered together as soon as he swings his feet up onto the bed and then Poe rolls onto his side and presses closer, knitting their fingers together on his chest.

“I’m okay.” Poe puts his head on Finn’s shoulder. “I’m okay. I’m okay, Finn.”

“You’re literally in the hospital. You have an iv, and you’re connected to a bunch of machines.”

“And they’re all proving that I’m doing much better.” Poe rubs his cheek against Finn’s shoulder. “It’s just like the flu. This isn’t going to be a long road to recovery, buddy.”

He rests his cheek against the top of Poe’s head. “Put the mask back on.”

Poe falls asleep within a few minutes.

 

\--

 

Poe ate the cookie because he wanted to make Finn happy. He saw how excited Finn was and decided it would be worth making himself a bit sick. That the one pro somehow outweighed the very real cons.

To make him happy.

Utterly ridiculous man.

Poe snores against his chest, just loud enough to be heard under the mask. He shifts against Finn, his hand wandering across Finn’s chest.

Poe wanted to make him happy.

Poe’s doctor comes back eventually. She wakes Poe up and asks him a long list of questions, decides that he’s doing well enough and doesn’t need the oxygen mask anymore. She doesn’t bat an eye at Finn, not when she finds Poe curled around him, not when Poe’s hand stays wrapped up in his through the exam. She works like a tidal wave, a rush of questions and poking and prodding before she’s gone again, staying just long enough to say that Poe’s making good progress. 

Just like that they’re alone again.

He sits up beside Poe, doesn’t try to keep their sides from touching. “Poe?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did you do it?” He sees Poe open his mouth but pushes on. “I know you said it was to make me happy but - but how was that enough? Even if it was just a stomach ache I wouldn’t - I wouldn’t do that for just anyone.”

“Just the cute ones.”

He blinks. “What?”

Poe nudges him. “I’d only do it for the cute ones.”

He stares at Poe and struggles to process that. “Are you - are you flirting with me right now? When we’re sitting on your hospital bed?”

Poe blinks.

He covers his face with a hand as a hysterical laugh rips from his throat. “Oh my God,”

Poe puts his hand on Finn’s arm. “Finn -”

“I made those cookies for you.” He murmurs. “Because I - I wanted to - I was excited that we were going to the dinner together. I made enough for everyone but they were - I did it for you.”

Poe stares at him.

He’d be impressed that he finally figured out how to make Poe speechless if he hadn’t just essentially confessed his feelings.

Christ.

“Why did you make them for me?”

He weighs his chances of getting away with a joke, maybe changing topics, wonders how long they could act normal, if their friendship could come back from this at all.

They can’t be having this moment in a hospital. Poe’s sick, recovering from a pretty major illness, and there’s a total stranger in the room with them, out of sight but definitely not out of earshot.

Of all the times he imagined this moment, of confronting whatever this is, he’d never thought of a hospital room. It’s not the kind of place for romantic gestures, Poe’s not in any kind of shape for anything like this, and - if this doesn’t go how he wants it to he’ll still be sitting here with Poe.

Except Poe’s looking at him like - like he has something riding on this too. Like if he checked there would be the same fragile glow in his chest that mirrors Finn’s own.

“I wanted to make you happy too.”

Poe searches his gaze. “Because I’m your friend?”

“No,” He shakes his head, shaping his mouth around the word very carefully. “Not because of that.”

Poe’s face lights up, a small, disbelieving smile on his lips. “Me too.”

“Yeah?”

Poe nods. He stares at Finn for a long moment before leaning in and pressing dry lips to Finn’s cheek.

He stares at Poe. Poe’s more flushed than he had been a moment ago but he holds Finn’s gaze, his hand steady on Finn’s arm.

His heart races, their surroundings disappearing until it’s just Poe in front of him, Poe against him, Poe’s eyes closing as he leans in, Poe’s mouth on his. Poe’s kiss.

Their kiss.

Poe cups his cheek, tilts his face up with the gentle press of his fingertips, his breath tickling Finn’s cheek, every point of contact lighting up, sparking in slow motion.

He kisses the corner of Poe’s mouth and presses their foreheads together, taking a deep, steadying breath. “Poe,”

“I’m really sorry that I scared you,” Poe murmurs. “But I’m glad it worked out the way it did.”

He nods, shifts back to look at Poe. “Me too, but never do that again, okay?”

Poe traces his fingers up Finn’s jaw. “Okay.”

He stays still as Poe moves his fingers across Finn’s cheek, presses a kiss to them when Poe moves them over his lips.

Poe’s gaze sticks to his mouth for a long moment, his ridiculous eyelashes fanning up when he meets Finn’s gaze. “I’m really tired right now, but as soon as I’m back to normal I’m gonna knock your socks off.”

A spark runs up down his spine, leaving heat in its wake. “That so?”

Poe grins and leans back on the bed, pulling Finn down next to him. “We’ve had a lot of time we could’ve been kissing to make up for.”

“Could’ve been kissing sooner if you hadn’t just almost died.”

Poe looks at him with something bright in his gaze, his smile growing. “You kissed me.”

“I did.” He wraps his arm around Poe’s shoulders. “Be willing to do it again, even.”

Poe licks his lips. “Yeah?”

He nods.

Poe grips Finn’s shirt and leans on his chest, kissing him again. He follows Poe’s lead, rubbing his palm down Poe’s back, revelling in the the press of Poe’s mouth, the shape of his lips.

Poe kisses the corner of his mouth, his cheek, the underside of his jaw, his temple. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long.”

“Your orange shirt.”

Poe lifts his head. “What?”

He blinks. Had that not been in his head? “Uh, you were wearing your bright orange shirt, a week or so into classes. It looked ridiculous and all I could think about was how much I wanted to kiss you.”

“Huh.” Poe shifts down the bed a bit, settles with his head on Finn’s shoulder. “Guess I know what I’m wearing on Monday.”

He laughs and brushes Poe’s hair off his forehead. “It’d be tough to not beat the hospital gown.”

“What are you talking about?” Poe frowns. “I’m totally pulling this off.”

“You look like you just went into anaphylactic shock a few hours ago.”

Poe runs his fingers over the collar of Finn’s shirt, toying with the top button. “It’ll probably take a day or two for me to feel totally back to normal, so, maybe Sunday - we could have dinner together? Just the two of us?”

“Yeah,” He covers Poe’s hand with his own and tangles their fingers together. “That sounds good.”

They talk about the details for a few minutes before lapsing into a comfortable silence. Finn’s thoughts drift between the way Poe’s mouth felt on his and Poe’s weight against him and the date they’re going on in two days.

He traces slow circles onto Poe’s back until he falls asleep and answers the handful of texts he’s missed, listening to the beats of the heart monitor and Poe’s soft breaths.

It’s hardly how he’d imagined tonight could go - or starting a relationship, for that matter - and it’s been enough excitement to last him a lifetime, but he has to admit he’d been right - it wasn’t anything like any of the dinners he’d been to before.

Hopefully next year’s a bit calmer, though.

**Author's Note:**

> so this was supposed to be a fill for a drabble prompt (lmao) and was just this dumb kind of cute idea my friend and I came up with a long time ago and then I started writing it and realized how easily it could be very easily interpreted as something really bad and i really hope that i was able to show it in the fic but i just want to emphasize poe really expected to just get a minor stomach ache at worst and he didn't think finn would ever notice (he genuinely just wanted to make finn smile bc he liked the cookie) bc he could use a bit more knowledge about allergies but he's not an asshole and would never pull a move like that (hopefully this was a really obvious statement but i care about poe way too much to let it go unsaid)
> 
> this is also one scene out of a much bigger universe so i know i say this every time but hopefully i'll be able to post more pieces from it soon
> 
> thanks for reading!!


End file.
